CANFIELD Officials seek residents' help in tackling fair's traffic congestion

A possible solution for next year's fair: one-way streets.
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
CANFIELD -- Officials in charge of traffic flow near the Canfield Fair say they're ready to meet with local residents and work on strategies for alleviating congestion next year.
"We are open to any and all suggestions on how we can more expeditiously move traffic. If anybody has any ideas, we'll entertain them," Lt. Brian Girts, commander of the Ohio State Highway Patrol's Canfield Post, told an audience at Monday's township trustee meeting.
Judge James Evans of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, who is in charge of traffic control at the fair, said he also would meet with local residents and representatives of the highway patrol and Mahoning County Sheriff's Department concerning fair traffic flow.
One idea
A potential improvement might be to make some streets, possibly including Leffingwell Road, one-way to the fair in the morning and one-way out in the evening, Evans said, adding he'd consult with the Mahoning County commissioners on this idea.
"We're trying to make every effort that we can to accommodate the public. Unfortunately, with the weather conditions that we had this year, we got put in a bind," the judge said.
Monday's discussion came in response to complaints of traffic gridlock, which were expressed to trustees by Leffingwell Road residents shortly after the fair. The five-day fair ends on Labor Day each year.
The traffic problem was compounded this year by heavy rains, which necessitated closing some fair parking areas, towing cars stuck in muddy grass lots, and using 11 school buses as shuttles to and from the fairgrounds.
Safety is the first priority of traffic control, Girts said, noting that anytime a firetruck or ambulance is dispatched to the vicinity of the fairgrounds during the fair, city police and the highway patrol are immediately notified to make the proper traffic control arrangements.
Response times
Girts said he responded three or four minutes after a 911 call and escorted a private vehicle driven by the son of a Leffingwell Road resident, who had cut her forehead in a fall, through fair traffic so she could quickly get to Beeghly Medical Park for treatment.
A statement by a local resident in a previous trustee meeting that the woman was taken by ambulance was inaccurate, Girts said.
In another situation, a Lane Lifetrans ambulance was able to respond to an auto accident on Leffingwell Road in less than a minute, he recalled.
Troopers from four highway patrol posts are paid by the fair board for extra duty to handle traffic control near the fairgrounds, where 20,000 to 30,000 cars are normally parked, he said.
This arrangement has been in effect since 1997, and 10 troopers now do this work from 2 p.m. until traffic clears after the fair closes each evening, he said.
This year, troopers repeatedly saw the same cars because people they had directed to alternative lots at Canfield High School, the Mahoning County Career and Technical Center and three local church parking lots said they didn't want to park in those remote lots and ride school buses to the fair, Girts said.